Dreams, Nightmares
by fairwinds09
Summary: He dreams of her. Always. LoVe, post-Season 3.


_A/N: Y'all, this is brand-new territory for me. I have read a ton of Veronica Mars fic since one of grad school friends forced me to watch the show last spring and I instantly became addicted, but writing it is a whole different ballgame. But I had Logan and Veronica in my head, and they wouldn't go away, and this is what happened. I just couldn't help myself. _

_So do me a favor and let me know what you think-I am way behind the times in joining this fandom, and there are so many good authors out there. I really want to know if this is worth pursuing further. Thanks!_

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><p>It's been three years, almost four, and he still dreams about her. He's beginning to think that it's going to happen no matter how long it's been. That he will never escape her.<p>

The thing that really bothers him is that it's always the same two dreams. When they were still together, even in the year or so after they broke up, the dreams varied. But about six months after she left Hearst, he started having the same two dreams, night after night. They are unusually clear and vivid, and every time he can almost taste her, almost catch the scent of her skin, her perfume. He always wakes up from them with a sense of entering into a strange, alternate world—that the dreams are reality, and everything else is the true fantasy. That sensation stays with him for days sometimes.

There are times he wishes that he could just forget her—move on with his life, date other women and fall in love and never think about blonde hair and blue eyes, marshmallows and promises. There are other times when he is absurdly grateful for the dreams because they are the last unbroken link he has to her. He hasn't heard from her or spoken to her since she left for her internship the summer after their freshman year, and by all rights his memories should be appropriately vague by now. But the dreams keep them fresh and alive, so that when he worries that he has begun to lose her forever, he knows that soon enough she will be _there_ when he closes his eyes. She will never leave. Not really.

...…

The first dream is the one he waits for, hopes for when he closes his eyes at night. It's always the same beginning. He's lying in bed, eyes closed, and when he opens them, she's lying beside him, a half-smile on her lips.

"It's really you?" he asks her, not believing what he sees. "You're here?"

Her smile widens.

"Of course it's me," she says. "Where else would I be?"

He looks around him, certain that this can't be true.

"You left," he murmurs, reaching out to touch her face, wanting to reassure himself that this isn't a figment of his imagination. "You never came back, never answered any of my calls. Why would you be here now?"

She looks down, and he could swear that he sees a trace of sadness in her eyes when she looks at him again.

"I didn't want to," she whispers, voice tight. "I had to go. But I missed you. I always missed you."

He shakes his head.

"If you missed me, why didn't you ever call me back? Why didn't you write, or text, or send up a damn smoke signal? I never wanted to give up on you, but you never gave me a choice."

She raises a hand to his face, strokes his cheek with her fingers. He shivers at her touch.

"I wanted you to forget about me," she says, low and tender. "Logan, you were supposed to forget."

At the sound of his name on her lips, he reaches for her, pulls her into him until her head is resting on his shoulder and her body is flush with his.

"God, I've missed you," he whispers into her hair, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. "No way in hell was I going to forget."

He looks down, and she's smiling at him again, and the way she's looking at him makes him feel something that he hasn't felt for four years. Without thinking about it, he bends his head and kisses her. It's a light, sweet kiss, almost a little shy, and he doesn't realize what he's about to do until his lips are already on hers. She is the one to draw him in, one arm sliding around his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair as she kisses him deeply, urgently. Before he has the chance to draw breath, she's sending every nerve ending in his body tingling, and he can hardly bear the sensation of immediate arousal. It's too much, too soon, and suddenly he's crushing her to the bed and kissing her like he can never get enough. His hands are everywhere, running over soft skin and subtle curves (god, he's always loved how slim she is, how delicate), and she's making a muffled sound in her throat that only means one thing.

"Stay with me," he whispers, begging, and hearing the pleading note in his own voice doesn't even faze him. "Don't go this time. Please."

She looks up at him, eyes impossibly blue, and touches his face very gently. "All right," she whispers back.

In less than a heartbeat, they're wrapped up in each other again, clothes flying to all corners of the room, and he's mapping her with lips and hands and teeth, the jut of her hipbones, the silk of her hair and the swell of her breasts. She intoxicates him, as she always has, pain and pleasure and _coming home_. And when he is inside her, her arms and legs wrapped around him so that his whole world is narrowed to the rhythm of her hips moving against his, something breaks open inside him that he's kept buried for a very long time. It is that something that makes him wait until the last possible moment so that they come together in almost perfect timing, that makes him bury his face in her hair, run his shaking fingers down her sides, pull her so close he worries he'll leave bruises.

"I love you," he chokes out, past the point of caring whether or not she says it back. It doesn't matter anymore—the words are clawing at his throat, demanding to be said no matter the consequences. And his heart stutters and then explodes when, as the last shudders subside, he hears her pant something in reply, muffled against his neck.

"Love…you too," and the world is perfect, bright and shining and new, and nothing has ever felt better than this. It's such a cliché, but if he died now, he's fairly sure he would leave this earth a completely satisfied man. She does this to him, strips away the layers of sophistication and _ennui_ to reveal the sappy romantic deep within. And he's too far gone to even consider caring. She's in his arms, she loves him, and she has promised not to leave. Nothing else matters.

He hates waking up from that dream. He's always hard as a rock, painfully so, breath coming fast and choppy, and the sheets beside him are always stone-cold and empty, even when there's someone there. He dreams it sometimes when he's with another woman, and he's terrified that he's going to murmur _her_ name in his sleep. He wants her so badly, even if he won't let himself admit it while he's awake, and he can't decide whether dreaming of her in bed with him, wanting him, helps the longing or makes it worse. It doesn't matter either way, he finally decides. She is just _there_ (bone of bone, flesh of flesh) and there is nothing that will ever change that. And so he sees her in his dreams, painted across the insides of his eyelids, and silently waits for her to come back again.

...

The other dream is the one he dreads. He knows it by heart, well enough that when the familiar scenes start playing out in his head, he starts desperately trying to wake up, wanting _out_ as fast as possible. He cannot bear this one.

It, too, always starts out the same way. He is somewhere dark, with only faint lights (street lamps? the stars?) to illuminate the ground where he stands. He thinks he is alone for the first few moments, and then he hears a sound behind him. When he turns, there is a figure there, shadowy, indeterminate. Sometimes it looks like Beaver, sometimes like Sorokin or Liam Fitzpatrick. It doesn't really matter who it is. The outcome is the same either way.

As the figure steps closer to him, he's aware of the sound again, a whimper so soft and terrified it's barely audible. He looks down, and this it the part where his veins fill with ice and his heart begins to hammer violently in his chest. Veronica is lying curled up on the ground at the man's feet, dark bruises blooming on her arms and face, and in her eyes he sees a fear he's never witnessed in her before, through all their time together. It is the fear that only comes when death is staring you in the face, and he is suddenly, painfully aware of the glint of that faint light on the barrel of the gun the man holds. It's pointed directly at her, and as she looks at him, he knows what she is thinking. There are no second chances, no clever ways to get out of this. She will die. There is no other way.

He is speaking, babbling, not knowing what words are spilling out of his mouth, just frantic to distract the menacing figure long enough to let her get away. He begs, threatens, pleads, promises anything and everything he can think of, but the shining barrel never moves from its lethal angle. Her eyes never leave his. And as the moments spin on to their inevitable conclusion, a heavy band of horror begins to squeeze around his chest. He can't save her, not with words.

He is desperate, terrified, and so he does the only thing he can think of and steps toward them.

"Don't hurt her," he grits out, his voice shaking with rage and dread, trying to ignore the way that the gun barrel seems to be sliding closer to Veronica's head. "You want to shoot somebody? Shoot me. I deserve it. Just let her go."

The shadowy figure laughs, harsh and grating, and he can't think why anyone would choose shooting Veronica over him. He's done so much more, been so much worse. What could she possibly have done to warrant this?

He takes another step, then freezes when the man in the shadows crouches to press the gun against Veronica's temple. "Don't," he whispers now, and the band around his chest has moved up into his throat, choking him with fear. "I'll do anything, just don't hurt her. I…"

"It's too late," the figure says, and he can't recognize the voice no matter how many times he has the dream. He braces himself without knowing why, his stomach seizing up, and then everything happens in slow motion— Fitzpatrick/Beaver/Sorokin stands up, he takes one last futile chance and flings himself across the gap between them, and suddenly his ears are ringing with the explosion of the gun. He sees nothing then but the dark stain spreading across the front of Veronica's shirt, doesn't even hear the inhuman noises coming from his throat. He doesn't know what happens next, where the figure goes, what happens to the gun. All he sees is Veronica, sprawled on the ground in front of him, her life seeping into the ground while the world whirls around him.

He tries to save her. He rips off his jacket, presses it as hard as he can to the wound, trying frantically to keep her with him. He begs again, pleads again, promises God and the devil all sorts of impossible things if someone will just make this not happen, let it stop, _please_ let it stop. She whimpers again, her body convulsing, and he can't breathe anymore. This cannot be happening, she cannot die right in front of him, she just can't. He tells her over and over again, whispers the words as he cradles her in his arms, strokes her hair and rocks her back and forth, not realizing that his tears are falling onto her cheeks. _I love you I love you I love you_, again and again so that the last words she hears in this life will tell her she mattered, she meant everything. _Don't go, baby, please don't go. Stay here with me, hold on, just a little longer. _And none of it matters. The ragged breaths grow shorter and shorter. She coughs twice, her blood pooling in his hands, seeping into his skin. One more breath in, one out, and then there is nothing. Silence.

He stays there, holding her, refusing to let go, and they both grow cold. The tide (was the ocean there the entire time?) creeps up the beach toward them, and he doesn't care. They will both wash away, be swept under. And when the dark water takes him, they will be there, together.

...

He claws his way out of the dream, feeling the cold water lapping around his ankles, feeling the weight of her, motionless in his arms. His stomach is twisted in knots, his throat is raw, and as he pours himself a glass of whisky, he knows that the liquor won't take away the horror of what he just saw. Here, in the cold darkness of early morning, he doesn't know where she is, what she's doing. He has no idea if she's safe or not. And there is nothing—_nothing_—he can do. He is no longer a part of her life.

Alone in the chilly light of his kitchen, he sips the whisky and wonders if the dreams will ever go away. If he will ever dream of someone else. He can't forget her, can't move on when in his sleep he's either making love to her or holding her as she dies. He thinks bitterly that this was the pattern of their life together, love and fear and desire mixed up so badly they couldn't tell them apart anymore, couldn't even think of normal because fucked-up was all they knew. He wonders how badly they hurt each other, if the wounds will ever heal, if they will ever be better, be sane. He wonders if he will dream of her tomorrow night, because in the end when his chips are down he would rather ache for her than be happy with someone else. He wonders if maybe someday the dreams will fade, if he will lose the last part of her that is still fresh and vivid in his mind. He wonders if she'll ever come back.

He wonders if she ever dreams of him.


End file.
